Thursday, 2 July 2015

Through another valley... But hopefully out the other side now!

Jadon has had an interesting week, which we have now come to expect from him. We have had continued issues with his sternal infection.

After the irrigation of the wound was ended, the surgeon recommended a corset for Jadon. This is a vest that is made by one of the CCCU nurses here at Sick Kids. The purpose is to help hold the chest and sternum in place to decrease the chance that Jadon's incision dehisces (opens up) again. Of course on Saturday we noticed that the bottom bandage of Jadon's was soaked through with fluid/pus from a gap in his wound. The top edge of the wound was also leaking. We had several visits from the CVS team and spent several days concerned about the increased infection risks. The concern was that the bottom hole went right into the lung cavity and would affect Jadon's ability to breathe on his own off the ventilator. It was decided yesterday that the communication was likely to the mediastinum (space between the heart and lung) and so Jadon could be extubated and the surgeon decided the wound should heal on its own. Late yesterday afternoon Jadon was extubated and put on hiflo oxygen. He did so well that this morning they switched him to regular nasal prongs and he is still doing well with great oxygen sats. They are still weaning his sedation and that will keep us in the CCCU for a while yet; however, we seem to have climbed out of the valley of the chest infection. They are hoping to start very minimal feeds through an NG tube and see how things go.

We are very happy with this little bit of progress though we are reservedly so. There have been so many unexpected setbacks after good news in the past that we are shielding ourselves from getting too excited too quickly. Here's to hoping and praying that Jadon will keep trending upward.